Mithros Guide You
by lakergal
Summary: Set near the end of Squire. Cleon stops by Kennan on his way to Northwatch...


Author's Note: I actually wrote and finished my own fanfiction! Um, this one lacks my normal humor, a bit, but I hope anyone who happens upon it likes it anyways. It takes place near the end of Squire, by Tamora Pierce. Please read and review? *moogie eyes*  
  
Mithros Guide You  
  
"My lord!"  
  
Cleon of Kennan shaded his eyes against the sun, squinting at the man who had opened the great ornated door, a masterpiece carved into solid oak. "Arrick Feldman, isn't it?" The answering eager nod demolished his uncertainty.  
  
"Arrick!" Cleon cried, slapping the older man on the shoulder. "It's been a few years, hasn't it?"  
  
"It 'as, my lord." The serving man grinned back at him, a toothy smile lighting up his face as he looked the knight up and down. "What brings yeh back to Kennan, if I may ask? Her ladyship said yeh 'ad received yer shield, and were 'eaded for the northern reaches."  
  
"I did, and I am." Cleon nodded firmly. "But I was passing through, and I figured I might as well stop by and see everyone as long as I was in the area. Has Mother been well?"  
  
Arrick's face fell. "Not well, as such, my lord," he admitted guiltily, "but she's been up and around a bit. Yer sister's home, too. She landed 'erself on our doorstep nearly a fortnight ago, and 'asn't shown the least wanting to leave since then."  
  
The big redhead bit back a grin at the other man's obvious disapproval. Not all the people of Kennan had been thrilled when Janessa had decided to leave for the Riders, and her sudden reappearance had likely ruffled more than a few feathers. "She wrote to me a couple of months back, telling me she'd be here," he admitted with a smile.  
  
Arrick scowled. "Likes of 'er shouldn't burden your poor mother in 'er old age," he commented. "Poor lass, the way she's getting on." Cleon nodded sagely, swallowing another smile. If this was Arrick's idea of subtlety, he hated to think of what the other man must say about his sister when the Lord of Kennan wasn't within hearing.  
  
"Shall I be telling her ladyship that yer 'ome, Lord Cleon?" Puzzlement creased the serving man's brow as he considered the title. "Or is it Sir Cleon, now?"  
  
"Just Cleon is fine," the redheaded knight assured him. "I shan't be home for long enough to go back to titles, Arrick, and I'll stop by and see Mother myself. You don't need to trouble her. Besides," he continued with a conspiratorial wink, "if you tell her I'm here now, she'll be offended that I didn't go in to visit with her first thing."  
  
A broad grin crossed Arrick's face as he returned the wink tenfold. Cleon almost winced in sympathy as the other man came close to blinding himself in his eagerness. "Oh, no worries 'ere, my lord. Yeh tend to yer business, and I'll see to yer mother."  
  
"My thanks, Arrick," the knight replied, clapping a hand on the shorter man's shoulder as he slid by him into the countryhouse. Arrick gave him a misty grin.  
  
"No need for that, Sir Cleon," he told him cheerfully as he closed the giant oak door behind the pair. "It's just good to have yeh 'ome."  
  
Cleon nodded his thanks with a smile as he entered into the parlor. Even here, he thought with a wince, it was clear that the great ornate oak door out front was the most expensive part of the house. The curtains in the sitting room where company was entertained were kept partially drawn. In the darkness, the moth-bitten furniture almost looked new, though the material had clearly gone out of fashion a few years past, and the spots in the carpeted floor weren't nearly so noticeable. Not even bad lighting, however, could have disguised the scruffed-up old table in the center of the room or the cracked chandelier on the ceiling.  
  
A sick feeling settled in the red-haired knight's stomach as he edged his way into the hall beyond the parlor. For his mother to allow the front sitting room to fall into such disrepair, she must have been a lot more incapacitated than she'd let on in her letters. With a sigh, Cleon shook his head and began climbing the stairs.  
  
The hall on the second floor, though it had clearly been dusted recently, was in just as bad shape as the parlor below. Cleon crept silently by the giant ornate doors at the end, making sure to step around the creaky floorboards that he remembered from his childhood and silently thanked his sister for teaching him how to sneak out of the house without awaking their mother. With a furtive glance over his shoulder to make sure there was no noise coming out of the room at the end of the hall, he knocked on an open door and stepped inside.  
  
A redheaded woman, her long hair pulled back in the braid common to K'miri tribeswoman, looked up from the book she was reading with a cry of surprise. "Cleon!" she shrieked, jumping up from her bed and wrapping her arms around his neck in a single smooth motion. The knight couldn't help laughing as he hugged his sister back. For all her fire, Janessa didn't even come up to his shoulder.  
  
"What are you doing here?" His sister's eyes were bright but suspicious. "You didn't write that you were coming home...I thought you were on your way to the Scanran border. Did something happen? Did the king release you? What's the news from Corus?"  
  
"Mithros, all these questions!" Cleon laughed, unhooking himself from his sister's embrace. "I'm on my way to Northwatch; I was sent there from the Progress, which is still back near Mindelan. The king, sadly, has kept us busier than ever, and I haven't been near Corus in months, so I've no idea of the news. Does that cover all your questions?"  
  
Drawing herself up to her full height, Janessa gave him a harsh glare. "You should have written. We would have planned something...a festival...anything!"  
  
Cleon shook his head. "You don't need to do that for me."  
  
"Goddess, Cleon! You haven't been home in ages!" Janessa shook her head at him in mock anger. "Shouldn't we do something to celebrate, what with the Lord of Kennan finally returning home after all these years?"  
  
"Celebrating is exactly what I don't want," Cleon told her firmly. "I plan to ride in and out, no trumpets, no banners flying. I've just something to tell Mother about, and..." he paused, feeling his face turning bright red, "and that's all, really."  
  
"Tell Mother?" Janessa stared at him, her face suspicious. "So you've come all this way to tell Mother something? Not even a thought to your wayward sister, who hasn't seen you in AGES, and..."  
  
"Enough!" Cleon threw up his hands in mock defense, chuckling. "Nessa, I missed you too. You could have stopped in, you know, one time when you were near the palace."  
  
"Not really," his sister sniffed. "You were always off with your page training, and then you were riding all around the countryside with Sir Inness, and then with Mother..." She trailed off.  
  
Cleon looked down, clenching his fists. "Is it worse than she wrote?" he asked quietly.  
  
Janessa laughed. "I doubt it. She broke her hip, Cleon, not her sense of drama." Seeing her brother's glum expression, she punched him on the arm. "She'll be fine, little brother. The doctor says she's only to stay in bed a few months more, and then she'll be up and about again."  
  
"Which, I'm sure, thrills you to no end," Cleon remarked dryly.  
  
His sister grinned. "When she's stuck in bed all day, she's little to do other than drop hints about how much better I could have done," she admitted, a dimpled smile creasing her features. "We're lucky you were available to marry an heiress, or I would have been skewered alive."  
  
Cleon's face fell. Janessa stopped mid-laugh, staring at him.  
  
"Please tell me that's not why you're here," she whispered.  
  
The red-haired knight sighed. "Janessa, it's not...I mean, I'm not...I never agreed..." Seeing the look on his sister's face, Cleon felt something dying deep inside of him. "Mithros, it's not like I asked for this to happen! I mean, I didn't WANT to meet someone, and fall in love with..." He trailed off.  
  
Janessa looked up at him, a sad smile crossing her face. "Yes, you did," she said softly. "You were always the romantic one, Cleon. I may have had my grand ideas of going off and finding adventure, but you were always the one searching for it right at home." She smiled at the memory. "I think I would have been surprised if you HADN'T found someone."  
  
Cleon gave her a weak grin. "That obvious, was I?"  
  
Janessa laughed, collapsing back down on her bed. Motioning for her brother to sit next to her, she crossed her legs and leaned back. "It all makes sense now. You just wanted to get in and out, didn't you? Without giving Mother a chance to invite Ophalie to dinner, or organize a chance meeting at the marketplace. That's why you didn't send ahead, or write."  
  
Nodding, Cleon obediantly lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. "I didn't plan on staying for long, either way. I really do have to get to Northwatch. I just wanted to get this out of the way, as best I could."  
  
Eyes closed, Janessa lay back on the pillows. "I really didn't think you had the courage to say no to Mother," she told her brother. "I mean, whenever I used to see you with Ophalie, it seemed like you had eyes only for her. I never thought you didn't care for her."  
  
Cleon snorted. "Nessa, I was fifteen years old! She had dimples, and...you know..." He gestured grandly at his chest. "It wasn't ever anything more than that!"  
  
"I don't know. Dimples and 'you know' always seemed to be enough for you before." Janessa gave him a sideways look.  
  
"Well, it isn't," Cleon stated hotly.  
  
His sister laughed again. "I'm only teasing, Little Brother. You've been away far too long." Grinning up again, she folded her arms behind her head. "What's this new girl like, then, if she's turned you away from a full bosom and a pretty face?"  
  
"She's..." Cleon could feel his face getting even hotter. "Oh, Mithros, Nessa! She's everything. My sunrise, my guiding star, a blossoming flower in the middle of a desert wasteland..." He sighed wistfully.  
  
Janessa chortled. "She's ugly as a mule, isn't she?"  
  
Cleon gave her the nastiest glare he could manage. "You have absolutely no sense of romance, you know that? No, she's not as ugly as a mule. She's beautiful. She's intelligent. She's everything I could want in a girl."  
  
"What's her name?" Janessa turned over to peer at him with, in Cleon's opinion, far too much amusement for so serious a moment.  
  
"Keladry," he growled. "Keladry of Mindelan."  
  
Janessa stared off into space, a thoughtful expression crossing her features. "Keladry of Mindelan..." she murmured, playing with the words. "I've heard of her. The girl page, wasn't she?" At Cleon's tight nod, Janessa's face broke into a grin again. "I should have known. It's just like you, isn't it?"  
  
"WHAT is just like me?" Cleon asked, irritated.  
  
Janessa grinned at him. "You know. Falling in love. With the ONE girl that will drive mother absolutely insane. Does she have any older sisters?" At Cleon's tight nod, Janessa began to laugh again. "Goddess, her parents won't be able to afford a dowry big enough!"  
  
"That doesn't MATTER..." Cleon began, but even as he spoke the words, he knew that they were a lie. Of course it mattered. Kennan couldn't go on existing in such a horrible state of disrepair. The people needed roads, a school, new support for their farms. And his mother...he felt his throat tighten. A nonexistant dowry wouldn't pay for the doctor visits she needed.  
  
Janessa patted him on the shoulder, drawing him out of his revelation. Sighing, Cleon gave her a sad smile. "I really am a fool, aren't I?"  
  
"Never," Janessa stated firmly, surprising him. "You're a dreamer, Cleon. We need your dreams, or the rest of us will be driven insane from reality." She squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. "It can't hurt to ask, at any rate. I'm sorry I laughed. You're obviously crazy about this Keladry, for you to come all the way here, and if she caught your eye AND kept it, she must be wonderful."  
  
"She is wonderful," Cleon told her. "She's beautiful, and intelligent, and gracious, just like a blooming flower in the middle of the barren desert..."  
  
Janessa began to laugh outright. "You used that one already," she announced, clapping her brother on the shoulder as tears streamed down her face. "Hasn't a year on Progress helped you come up with any new poetry?"  
  
Cleon scowled. "I LIKE that one."  
  
Still chuckling, Janessa did her best to compose herself. "Whatever you say, brother dear," she crowed, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm sure your dear Keladry will appreciate the comparison, at least."  
  
Before Cleon could come up with a quick retort, a knock sounded on the door. Still scowling at Janessa, the redhaired knight went to open it.  
  
"I'm...I'm sorry, my lord." A maid stood behind the door, bowing hesitantly. Her face darkened for an instant before she addressed Janessa. "My lady. Your mother 'eard you were 'ere, my lord, and she wanted to see you..."  
  
Cleon's face fell. "I'm going to get it for not stopping in to say my greetings immediately," he muttered.  
  
"Get on, then!" Janessa motioned at him, still giggling. She sobered up somewhat as she looked her brother over. "Seriously, though, Cleon. You should tell her. Don't let her scare you into just agreeing to everything she says."  
  
Cleon gave her a weak smile as he followed the maid down the hall. The doors of his mother's room were wide open, allowing the smell of a sickbed to waft through the countryhouse. Wringing his hands nervously, he took a deep breath and stepped inside.  
  
"Hello, Mother," he said softly, giving her a tight grin as he took his place by his bed.  
  
Lady Farinne of Cleon looked up at him through heavy eyelids and smiled sleepily. Cleon felt his stomach sink as he looked her over. His mother had always been so strong, even when his father died, and it hurt more than anything to see her confined to her bed like this. Her face was gray in the poor light, her lips a thin line, her hands nothing more than skin stretched across bone.  
  
"Cleon..." she murmured, motioning for him to come closer. "You didn't write."  
  
"No." Cleon gulped, his heart throbbing. "I didn't know ahead of time. I was just on my way near Kennan, and..." He shrugged helplessly.  
  
His mother smiled. "It's all right, dearheart. I'm glad you came by, at least." She coughed, a gut-wrenching sound that seemed to double over her entire body.  
  
Cleon froze, aching to help her, to get rid of the horrible sound, but not knowing what to do. He could only stand helplessly until the fit subsisted and she waved at him to come closer again. "I wish I'd known, though. I could have written to Perella, had her bring Oranie for dinner..."  
  
A deep ball began to work its way through Cleon's throat. "Well, Mother, that was actually part of the reason I stopped by..." he began.  
  
Lady Farinne gave him a soft smile, not listening to the words he spoke. "The two of you always made a lovely couple. I'm thankful I have a son like you, Cleon," she told him gently. "Your sister never would have acceded to marrying an heir for the good of Kennan. She'd rather turn hundreds of years of tradition on its end than fulfill her obligation as a noble, all for some fleeting feeling that will vanish as suddenly as it came. Imagine that."  
  
"Imagine that," Cleon echoed, his stomach clenched. His mother sighed.  
  
"I know it's a hard duty we ask our sons to perform," she told him, patting him on the hand, "but you'll learn to love her, in time. I loved your father." A tear glistened in her eye. "You're a good child. We were all so proud of you, when we heard you won your shield."  
  
Cleon smiled at her, trying not to let any of the despair he felt leak onto his face. "Thank you. That means a lot to me," he said honestly.  
  
His mother smiled back at him, a peaceful expression crossing her face. "Do you want me to send to Oranie about dinner? I'm sure she and her parents won't mind taking it with us, once they learn you're here. Annalee!" she cried for her maid.  
  
"No!" Cleon could feel his face burning red. "No, Mother," he repeated in a softer tone. "Honestly. It's fine." He gave her a big smile. "I need to be on my way soon, anyhow. I've got to reach the Northwatch in a few days, what with the detour I took, and I should make my best time when it's light out."  
  
"Oh." For an instant, his mother looked no bigger than a sick child. Cleon longed to embrace her, to tell her everything would be okay. "Well, you'd best be off then."  
  
"I'll stop by soon." He could feel his throat tighten as he spoke.  
  
His mother grinned weakly at him. "Of course you will. Be off with you, now, rapscallion." Cleon bent over to kiss her on the forehead as he backed from the room.  
  
"How is she?" he asked the maid who lurked by the door.  
  
"My hip is broken, not my hearing!" his mother called after him. "Do tell him to remember I'm not a child or senile, Annalee!"  
  
The maid smiled as she led Cleon further out into the hall. "She'll be fine, my lord. She just needs a while more of bed rest, the doctors all said. A few more weeks, and she'll be up and around the 'ouse as right as you please."  
  
Cleon nodded his thanks as he cast one last glance over his shoulder. Sighing, he turned and marched back down the stairs, heading for the nearby stable where he'd quartered his warhorse. It was time to go.  
  
He'd just finished saddling his horse when a shadow fell over the doorway to the stable. Looking up, Cleon gave the figure before him a weak grin. "Somehow I knew I wouldn't be able to leave without saying goodbye to you."  
  
"You let her talk you out of it!" Janessa glared at him, her eyes dark with anger and confusion. "I can't believe it, Cleon! You came all this way to break the betrothel, and the second you're confronted with someone who thinks otherwise, you back down!"  
  
"I didn't back down," Cleon retorted, willing his emotions to stay hidden within him. "I didn't tell her at all."  
  
"You didn't TELL her?!"  
  
"I didn't tell her," Cleon repeated as he met his sister's gaze, his eyes shining. "Janessa, I couldn't. Mithros..."  
  
"Cleon, whatever happened to true love?" Janessa blinked tears out of her eyes as she stared at her younger brother. "You always used to be the one with dreams! You'd tell me how you wouldn't let anything stand in your way, not the King, not Mother, not anything!" She shook her head sadly. "Now here you are with the chance to finally claim one, and you let it go!"  
  
"No." Cleon closed his eyes, knowing his heart was breaking, but also knowing that he was making the right decision. "Janessa, true love isn't one of my dreams. Becoming a knight was. Protecting..." He gulped, unable to go on. "Protecting the people of Kennan, that's a dream too. But love..."  
  
Janessa stared at him coldly, not understanding. Cleon squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry, before he looked up at her again.  
  
"I can't do it," he told her quietly. "Goddess, I like Kel...I LOVE her...but I can't do that to Kennan. I can't abandon the people I owe service to. Kel will just have to..." He swallowed, unable to continue.  
  
His sister still fixed her gaze on him, though her face softened. "What are you going to do?" she asked quietly.  
  
"I don't know." Cleon stared down at his hands as if he was seeing them for the first time. "Head up to Northwatch. Work as a knight there. I was..." He took a deep breath, momentarily losing his composure. "I was going to go back down to Corus during Midwinter, to see Kel face her Ordeal, but I don't even think I can do that now." Seeing Janessa's pitying look, he shook his head. "It's better this way. Maybe if I stay away for long enough, she'll find someone else."  
  
"Goddess, Cleon," Janessa whispered, her face gleaming with tears, "you underestimate the old Kennan charm if you think anyone could ever forget you."  
  
Cleon gave her a weak smile. "I guess I'll just have to wait and see, then. You never know. Miracles have happened before." He sighed, and his face fell. "But if one doesn't happen, I'm going to marry Oranie. It's the right thing to do, Janessa."  
  
Janessa smiled sadly at him. "You're either the bravest person I've ever met, little brother, or the stupidest."  
  
"I'll pretend I didn't hear the second part of that," Cleon told her with a brave grin as he mounted his warhorse. "Good hunting, Nessa. I promise I won't stay away so long this time."  
  
"You'd better not," his sister retorted. "Mithros guide you, Cleon."  
  
Cleon smiled down at her, his face still shining with tears. "Mithros guide you." 


End file.
